Persephone
by Carryon14
Summary: How difficult is it, really, to love the king of the dead?
1. Prologue

A/N: I had a bit of writer's block - and for good reasons - so this update comes with a bit of a revamp on the story. No drastic changes, except maybe in Chapter 6. For those of you who's been following this, there's a nice little synopsis at the beginning of chapter 8 which should fill you in. Or, if your patience holds with me, there are notes at the beginning of each chapter pertaining to what's been changed, which really isn't much. I seem to be saying that alot...

The prologue, below, is definitely new.

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**Prologue: The Return**

She came out into the sun, a pale trembling thing, large dark eyes drowning her face with tears. Her skin was so translucent that they could see the path of blue veins from her temples to her neck and across the alabaster length of her arms; her feet, tiny like a child's, peeked demurely out of the blue gown. When she moved it was with the uncertainty of a lamb.

Hermes stood to one side, his winged sandals glinting in the dawn, looking none the worse for having traversed the land of the dead. He extended a hand to the girl, his bronze skin looking unspeakably healthy against her small hand, and waited, patiently, while she descended the steps of the carriage. It had carried her here to the sunlit lands, the gaping hole in the ground attesting to the violence of their journey; and now it loomed behind her, preternaturally large, casting a square shadow. Like a coffin, Demeter thought.

A hand, male, suddenly reached out from the dark interior and caught hers – grasped it, crushing it between broad fingers. Demeter saw her daughter look back, an indescribable look crossing her face as her hand was – no doubt – kissed by her demonic suitor. She tilted her face, as if listening – and her lips moved as she replied, slowly; that same unreadable look again. Then, turning back, she descended the last step and stood, blinking in the bright sun, her smile nothing more than a little wan crook of the mouth. The bones of her face turned her hollow cheeks into shadows.

Demeter ran to her daughter.

"Kore," she wept, feeling bony shoulders beneath her hands; her daughter, her love, her pride, reduced to this.

Her daughter's tears, flowing down her cheek.

"Kore," she could only say, after so long, so much pain and death and madness.

The earth groaned behind them; the dark carriage was leaving. She held tighter to her daughter, whom she had failed to protect while there was still the chance – but to her surprise, Kore wrenched herself away, stood still and pale after the retreating shadow.

"Daughter," Demeter frowned. And her Kore bowed her lovely head – she was so young, still so small; a girl – and when she turned to face her mother, the look on her face was wistful.

"Mother," her daughter's voice had changed. It was deep, dark as the caverns in which she had been prisoner; washing over Demeter like the autumn gales over the barley – strong, like her own, that of a god come into her place – like her husband's.

Demeter's confusion must have shown on her face; for Kore laughed (tears still falling down her face), and kissed her mother's cheek.

"Demeter; mother," said her young daughter, "My name is Persephone."


	2. Kore

A/N: I own nothing... wait a moment... Are the Greek Myths really under copyright?

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**Chapter 1: Kore**

Kore sat by the sunlit window, braiding flowers into her hair, upraised arms white under the gaze of Helios. The light touched her small feet, warming them and the stones beneath. She hummed softly a song taught her by the stream, a song of water from which all things came. Soon the flowers in her hands heard the words of that which had given them life, and charmed themselves into a crown, winding supple branches into the plaits of her copper hair.

Her mother always wanted her to wear pale blossoms, blushing pink or yellow or the faintest crimson, but Kore loved the dark flowers; roses so red they were almost black, purple mums with the touch of finest satin. Today she wore bluebells in the weave of her laurel leaves to match her dress; red would not do, her mother had told her – today they were to meet the other gods, who did not approve of colors clashing.

Her mother's house was warm and bright; plants filled the vases, vines wound themselves in delicate patterns on the walls, and the hearth was always clean – that is, when it was not piled with heaps grain and statues and fruits and animals sacrificed to her mother. In the mornings Kore woke to the light chatter of small winged things, or the pattering of human feet and the soft murmuring of the first worshippers of the day.

She would hide out of sight between the shadows of marbled columns, and watch as mortals threw barley above their heads. She heard the small grains rain down, clattering on the hard floor with the sound of a thousand raindrops. She stayed hid while they poured the wine on the altar, splashing over the white marble a bruised red of ripe plums, smelling of sunshine and earth from lands far away. She watched, too, when the spring lamb was led mewing to the altar, its fur so warm and trembling that she felt its softness from her hiding-place. She learned to keep still when the young woman praying for fertility – or the farmer praying for a good harvest – felled the lamb with a strong blow to its head, and then, baring a knife across its white throat, let the red blood flow like a mountain stream, a steady splash, mingling with the barley and the wine. Blood as red as the roses that grew from her footsteps, red as her own lips.

Each time she watched the sacrifices Kore would feel the flush in her cheeks, the flush of a life sacrificed for her all-life, and taste in the corner of her mouth a pure drop, sweet and pungent as nectar, heady and beguiling as wine, joyous and yet sorrowful. For within each drop she also tasted death, the heavy coldness that follows the last heartbeat, the sudden release of tension from a bouncing lamb to the prone lifeless thing that lies then on the floor, about to be skinned and skewered. Death tasted like ash on her tongue, bitter and powdery, marring the sweetness. So she watched the sacrifices, reveled and dreaded them.

* * *

"Who is Hades?" Kore had asked her mother. 

"Do not speak his name so loudly, daughter," her mother warned, "You summon a power too great for you to imagine."

Nevertheless her mother told her of the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, the pale and grim lover of dark who fought his battle, and went into the ground to claim his prize.

"For he is a greedy god; unlike like us, he cannot create, merely possess. And so he is the lord of all treasures buried in the earth, and the lord of all the souls of men. Down in the depths he dwells, in caves of unchanging stone, among the deathless monsters that roam its dark crevices. His mind is unchangeable, and he allows no soul to escape his rule. All men who will ever live receive his judgment – to live in bliss or endure torment for all the ages of the world."

"Did he choose to rule the world of the dead?" asked Kore.

"Yes," replied Demeter, "remember well, daughter, that he is not one of us."

Kore knew lambs did not go down to the world of the dead; only men did, and gods, sometimes, if they had business with Hades, or were fated to die. She often imagined what they would have seen – a dread lord, tall and terrible, who spoke with a voice that was one with the deepest chasms of the earth; mirthless eyes that watched disinterestedly upon suffering. Perhaps he laughed at pain, for his heart was dark, like his soul. Yet he too was under the rule of the fates, he too followed a destiny, and he too, must have endured pain.


	3. Hades

A/N: negligible changes to this chapter. Onward and forward!

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**Chapter 2: Hades **

Apollo brought his horses with a brilliant flash, his smile like white beaches in summer. It was Kore's second ascension to Olympus, and she stepped lightly forward, smiling shyly and adjusting the flowers in her hair.

A furious gale gathered around her feet; and before she could hold tighter to the edge of the chariot Kore felt herself catapulted skyward. When her eyes cleared she stood on the clouds of Olympus. Her mother took her hand as Apollo flashed a mischievous wink. "It would not do to keep Zeus waiting."

But the god that stood motionless at the top of the marbled steps was not Zeus.

Kore was running up the pristine white stairs, taking them by threes and twos and laughing for her mother to follow. Then her vision was arrested by deepest black. She felt her mother coming up beside her and Demeter's hands shoot out to grasp her own. And she knew, this was Hades.

He did not say "good morning" or "well met". He merely stood there, a massive blot in the middle of clouds, and looked calmly at them as if they had business with him.

"Hades." Demeter inclined her head. Kore followed suit, dropping a small curtsey. It was not her place to speak, not with her mother here. But curiosity burned in her like a spear, and where she should have averted her eyes she looked into the face of the Lord of the Dead.

She had the impression that he was tall; she had to crane her neck to look up at him. The black attire hid most of his form from view, and his face pale and drawn. His hair was deepest black; high cheekbones set above a wide mouth, pressed in a line. His forehead was broad, his nose aquiline, with black brows that drew thick lines over the clearest eyes Kore had ever seen, transparent as crystals, clear like a bubbling spring. They were deep, yet mirror-like, with the merest hint of – she could not tell what it was, silver or blue. In her dreams Kore saw him with grey eyes the color of smoke – or black might have done, endless as the night – but here in the sun his pupils were mere pinpricks, and his gaze clear and hard as the finest diamonds.

The dazzling sun must hurt his eyes, she thought, a little dazed; the sun forces him to stay in the dark. Yet here he stands amidst all this brightness, and does not shield his face.

As if sensing her thoughts, Hades turned his gaze upon her, his eyes showing her nothing of the mind that watched from behind them; but Kore felt all her secrets pouring forth from her eyes, her nose, and her breath – her very heartbeat gave her away to the silent God of Death. She felt he judged her, as he did the mortal shades who begged his mercy. And though she did not fear him, she was ashamed of how weak she must seem to him, standing in the shadow of her mother, short and untried. He took his eyes away after an immovable second.

"Demeter," his voice was the low rumble of the earth, "what tears you from your fields and meadows?"

"Zeus summoned me," her mother said.

"And your daughter." said Hades. It was not a question.

"Yes," Demeter said, but made no introductions.

The mirthless diamond eyes took a speculative gleam, "a child of the skies and the meadows, earth and air. She might rule us all someday if you're not careful, Demeter."

"I shall miss my audience with Zeus, if I'm not careful, Hades," her mother replied, and took her hand again. But this time Kore resented the guiding arm. She gently took her hand back.

"Your child is a girl no longer," intoned Hades, his voice dark and cavernous as the earth's deep core, "guard her well lest she strays. Unless she is fated to stray; then with even Cerberus at her door she will flee from you."

"And until you are privy to the will of the fates, Hades, I must confess to a more pressing duty," Demeter stepped past him, tight-lipped, "goodbye."

"Goodbye, Demeter. Kore."

Kore looked back at the black-robed figure – he knew her name – but he pulled on his dark helm, and vanished.

* * *

"Welcome, dear Demeter, and…Kore." Zeus of the thunderbolts sat high upon his throne, Queen Hera beside him, doubtless irate at confronting another of his illegitimate by-blows. Kore felt the Queen's burning eyes as she bowed her head to her father, who was her father in no sense but one.

"What an unexpected surprise," boomed the sky god, the protector of travelers and ravisher of mortal women, the father of more than half the gods assembled. "I did not expect you to bring your daughter, Demeter, lovely though she is, and a wonder to our eyes."

Her mother's voice turned steely, "you summoned us both, Almighty Zeus."

"Oh?" he sounded genuinely surprised, "how remiss of me. For the matter I wish to discuss concerns only you."

"I can wait outside," Kore said, wishing to be free of the Queen's oppressive glare.

And so she found herself in the blinding sun again; her shadow shrunk to half her height, for it was near midday.

Apollo found her there on the steps, the sun glinting upon his brilliant skin, and smiling, he inquired whether she liked flowers. Of course, said she, radiant, which made him laugh. He knew of a field of wild poppies, he said, and his stallions would take her there.


	4. Poppies

A/N: minor changes in this one - a conversation about duty that begins with "I should be afraid to live where it is dark"

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**Chapter 3: Poppies**

Poppies surrounded her like an ocean, and Kore laughed, swimming in the sea of red that claimed the valley. Her footsteps were the rustling wind; she flew over the blooms and left them undisturbed. And whenever her toes found the ground, green shot up from under it, and tulips grew, and daisies, and roses, a riot of color on between ice-capped mountains.

Lightly stepping she blew on the stems of a few ripened flowers, and they cut themselves for her, falling lightly onto the carpet of fragrant grass. And Kore, laughing, took up them up and threaded them into her hair, scattering the bluebells in the field, which took root and grew, too. She sang the song that the birds taught her now, filling the echoing valley with the sound of warbling, chirping, and twittering things. And then it seemed to her that the earth sang too; sang its slow deep song of transformation, growth and death and rebirth.

The sound of faint applause stopped her. Sending her thoughts out Kore found him under the shade of a great tree on the side of the mountain. Where he was the rock jutted up, steep and unyielding, and nothing grew but for the lone blackened elm. He stood, a fluid movement of night against shadow, and walked to the edge of the greening valley – stopping short of the flowers, leaving a sea of wild beauty between them. He bowed.

"Milord," she said, confounded, but a small thrill rose in her stomach bade her smile at him, and drop her head in a curtsy.

"I have not heard such songs in a long time," he said, and she felt the eyes, clear as water, wash over her. His voice was soft. As he made no move toward her, Kore stepped his way until she could see him – onyx hair and dark brows and all.

"Do flowers not grow at all where you live, Milord?"

He looked at her, unsmiling, though she thought he might have been amused, "there is no light, lady."

"No light?" she paused, feeling a little foolish, but also a little afraid, for he said it so matter-of-factly, and knew then that what she could barely imagine on the earth was truth.

"I think should be afraid to live where it is dark."

The unfathomable eyes lingered on her face, and then, a faint curving of his mouth. Not a smile, more like a grimace turned upwards.

"There is little to fear; besides, I have grown accustomed to it."

She raised her eyes to his.

"It is where all my memories lie," he said, as if noting her surprise, "it is where my duty lies."

_Duty._ Kore had never heard gods speak of duty before. Pleasure was reason aplenty, or anger, or love, or pure caprice. Humans had duty – her mother had explained this to her, as they things they had to do to stay alive, or to keep their families alive. How strange that the mortals' duty was to remain out of the grasp of Hades for as long as possible, while his was to keep them.

Her mother said another word came with duty, which was, _sacrifice_. Demeter never had a chance to explain the word – not as it related to humans. What did Hades know of sacrifice, he being a god? What did he have to sacrifice?

He had watched her while she pondered this, a wry look upon his face which she could not interpret. And then he opened his hand, full of flower petals.

"What do you call this?" he asked, his palm crimson between them.

"Poppies, milord."

His response was merely to snatch a petal from behind her ear.

She smiled, and taking the petal from his hand – brushing his cool, white fingers with her rosy ones – she closed her eyes and blew upon it.

Opening them, she saw him look up at the rain of petals that drifted down upon them, petals that caught in his hair and landed on his dark cape, petals that landed on the barren ground beside him and became flowers – strong roots digging into the ground. But then Kore remembered he was a god far more ancient than she; that this was perhaps no more than child's play to him, and she was a little ashamed, and felt foolish to behave so before the lord of all that was dead.

But he looked down at her and his eyes were kind, and he said, "It's beautiful."

And she laughed, for she did hope the dead lord may be kind, and stepped into the sunlit valley.

"Will you not come?"

He looked down at his feet, almost in chagrin.

"In my world I may move as smoke or wind or winged things; but here in the world above I step as a mortal would, lady," he shook his head, "I would tread on all those things you have created with your song, and destroy them."

And suddenly she pitied him, for she remembered her mother's words – that Hades cannot make, only keep that which is dead.

"Mortals use the seeds of these poppies, crushing them into a powder and burning them; for it is said that the fume of these flowers allow you to forget, and dwell in happy oblivion for a little while, without troubles and woes."

The little tightening at the corner of his mouth told her he was offended; yet when his spoke his voice was rich with amusement.

"Mortals believe us forever in a haze of bliss," his bright eyes caught her again, holding her, "but I never forget. Not one word, one movement, one name I have heard and seen since the day I was made. And never do I dwell in oblivion. Where I live are the darkest rooms of Gaea, yet they are for me the clearest."

Kore felt her face redden, for he looked on her still. She had opened her mouth to apologize, but then a wind swept up, taking her words with them. Kore turned, half expecting Apollo and his stallions, but it was not he. The winds were changing, bringing clouds from the western skies. The flowers of the valley bowed and wavered under the gale; petals loosened themselves and whirled into the sky in a great maelstrom of color. The wind swept up Kore's hair, unbinding the poppies, which joined the ring of reds and gold and blue that surrounded her and her companion. His ebony hair blew into his face, and his robe fluttered madly about him; and while Kore felt herself bending in the wind he stood deadly still as one rooted. She stepped forward, taking hold of his arm for support, and felt a cool hand at the small of her back. And when she smiled into his face she found it close to her own, his cool breath falling lightly on her brow.

"Do you know the dance, Milord?"

He shook his head, eyes unreadable. And Kore, burning with a strange new boldness, began to sing the song of wind and clouds – a song to bring the rain to the earth. And taking his arms she began the dance; first with light steps back and forth in the beat of her song. Then she took up both his cool hands within her own, and stepped around him, touching the ground but a little. He joined her, his movements a counterpoint to her own, and they spun around their gathered hands like in children's games. Presently Kore felt the air materialize under her feet, dense until she could walk upon it. She circled him faster and faster, laughing as her song pulled the water from the heavens, and rain fell on them with the twinkling of the sacrificial barley upon the marbled floor, with the voice of rivers in the springtime. She willed her feet to skim across the rain and the air; she lifted her head, baring her throat to the skies, and heard her voice soar across the mountains.

And suddenly they were aloft, she with the Lord of Souls held fast in her hands, flying over the valley of poppies, up into the snow-capped peaks with dark clouds drifting above them, and sheets of water crashing down about them, and the voice of the mountain reverberating with the song of the skies. She felt his pulse through her fingers, so tightly did he grip her hands, and she could not tell it from her own. A mad joy was upon her, and she laughed, drinking in the rain, riding the fury of the wind, and he with her.

They returned to earth after an eternity. All around them was birdsong, for the clouds had emptied themselves, and Helios reclaimed his place in the western skies. Kore could not keep from laughing, though she was tired and held onto her companion out of fatigue – and, she had to admit, a little out of joy.

"Look at me," he commanded.

And looking up into his face she beheld that rarest of things on earth, far less common than the gold and diamonds and the jewels of the ground, and the monsters that guarded them. Kore saw the dread lord of darkness smile. Yet it was not a true smile; for his eyes held sadness as he wound his arms around her, and looked into her face.

"My Persephone," he said, and kissed her.

The light of the world faded as their lips met, and with the roar of beasts and the clanging of swords and the terrible whinnying of deathless horses she fell into the infinite dark.


	5. River

A/N: shorter, this time around, and less wordy. A minor change in Kore's response to being pulled into hell, beginning with "she shivered at the chill in his words..."

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**Chapter 5: River**

Shadows passed over her, shining softly, undulating between water and fog. Kore tried to speak, but her ears were deaf even to her words, so she closed her mouth unheard.

This must be death, she thought, a little consoled. For she had always thought death a lightless place filled with the wailing of slaughtered animals; the disconsolate cries of mothers and wives. But there was no pain; only the sensation of floating in a great grey ocean.

"Kore," someone called from far below, then again, insistently, "Kore."

It was not her mother's voice; but then again, she reminded herself, Demeter could not die. But if her mother was deathless, and her father was Zeus, Kore thought, neither should she float in death like any normal shade. She was not dead, merely waiting…

"Kore!" the voice called again, nearer this time.

"I can't be dead," she told it, "because I cannot die."

"No," agreed the voice, "you cannot."

Then Kore felt herself pulled downward, and with her limbs she felt something unyielding beneath her, holding her up; and opening her eyes she saw that the waves above her were but reflections upon the cavernous walls, and an impassive pale face hovered above her, whom she knew to be Hades.

She sat up, rocking the small boat. A cold draft blew up from the chill river that they sailed on - the boatman, Hades and she. Kore saw that the waves upon the walls were but reflections of waves upon the great river; and looking over the side Kore could see herself upon the dark surface, a white face swimming in a liquid mirror that ran together and broke apart.

"Do not touch the water," Hades said.

"I am not dead. I do not belong here," she told him, knowing now what it was that he had done, but he ignored her.

"This is the Styx, the River of Hate. Her waters hold dark and unreasoning passions of those who pass my gates. Do not touch the water, lest the blackness reaches back for your hand."

Kore looked away from him. Few gods have ever seen this place, and the humans who do return not to the light. She blinked, her eyes unused to the darkness.

"You need not fear," he continued, "nothing in this realm will hurt you."

"You have stolen me," she said; her voice stronger now that she no longer looked at him, "I came not of my own will."

"Not by your will, no," he replied tonelessly, "but by the will of fate. This is your destiny."

She shivered at the chill in his words, and in the pit of her stomach where fear should have gnawed, she suddenly found a growing calm – a deadly, hating calm.

"This is how I am to be repaid, then, for my kindness," said Kore, in a voice she did not recognize, "Indeed, Milord, had I known you thirsted so to possess all light I would have been to you as other are, cautious and demure; but in my ignorance I sought to bring joy to hell. I am to be thusly repaid for the foolhardy bravery of my youth? I have ever lived in the sun and the wind, but this here is darkness full of monsters and black waters; I do not belong here, much less do I belong here with you – you who would take all beauty and hoard it within the walls of your deep caves, and corrupt it until no life is left."

"Silence!" his roar echoed in the hollow caverns, scattering bats and shades; the river splashed around them, stirred by his fury, dark droplets like blackest night flying in the air. Kore could not help but to her face against the horrid sound, like earth itself howling in fury. She saw the ferryman bow, kneeling down and shielding his eyes from the awful sight before them.

"Look at me!" he shouted. His eyes were almost black now, pupils dilated to swallow up the clear iris, two pools of lightless dark.

"Think you I asked for this?" his whisper rang just as loudly upon her deafened ears. As she clenched her hands and tried to stop shivering, he pulled at his clothing, rending it with powerful strokes, until his breast lay bare and she saw a puckered scar – red and blue and purple, fanning out in livid veins on his pale chest the shape of a great web. The scar over where his heart would be.

"Ero's deadliest dart," he continued while she stared in horror, "a fitting gift for the king of the dead, is it not? And a greater joke for those who dwell upon their mountaintops."

Kore shook her head.

"You don't understand, young one?" he looked at her, lips curled in a wry, mirthless smile, "I love you full against my will."

"But you don't know how to love," Kore whispered.

He smiled again.

"That is the great joke."


	6. Wind and Shadow

A/N: a rather major change in this - I was tired of meek little Kore being afraid. You'll find it after "and he sighed, and the moment was past"

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**Chapter 5: Wind and Shadow**

She did not take his proffered hand as they alighted the boat, and he withdrew it, watching silently while she struggled to keep her balance, the little boat rocking under her. The boatman spoke no word either, but bowed low to both of them as Kore stood finally upon firm ground.

Kore held herself against the cold, backing away from the murkiness of the river. The beach was sand – yet no sand that she had ever known, for it was composed of rocks crushed together until they were smaller than the tip of her hair in the eons when Titans walked the world. And for the many eons since it has lain there at the edge of the great river rushing downward to the center of the earth, lightless and untouched by the sun.

She turned to look at Hades, his pale face and dark garments melding with the land that lay behind him - wide fields of low-lying fog, flowing like grey wreathes upon inky night. It seemed to her that he would be little more than shadow and mist himself, opaque, withholding – but for the tear in his robes, the shredded cloth beneath which the scar showed, purpling and raw, unbleached by the land. Kore withdrew her eyes, feeling strangely of shame, fear, and something else, something like anticipation, but sharper – tinged with horror and a sensation of falling. She looked down upon herself, her blue dress of summer turned ashen, wrinkled and streaked with dirt; her arms, once bronzed by the sun, now unearthly gray in the dim light.

He made a gesture with his hands; Kore heard only the muted sound of his cloak upon the ground before they were enveloped in a shroud of darkness. She dimly remembered his words from before, _in my world I may move as smoke or wind or winged things_, and she then was drawn along through the doors of his kingdom, faster than bird's flight. The smooth ground fell away from them and cool air rushed at her, catching at her dress and her hair, but the great cloud that was Hades gathered around her and did not falter. Tall gates opened for them, and a bare plain passed beneath her feet in the space of a breath.

Between the shadows of two great cliffs they slowed.

"Cerberus," said the Lord of the Dead, his voice surrounding her like the mist, "do not fear, for he is under my power."

"I do not fear him," said Kore, and it was true. Nonetheless she averted her eyes as they passed the quaking mass of black fur and yellow teeth, lolling eyes and stamping feet, whose warm breath smelled to her like the air of stagnant marshlands.

Beyond the pass dark wind swept around her again, bearing her as a boneless doll past the flatlands. Kore had little means to fight him. Many twists and turns they passed, winding through mountains and valleys too quickly for Kore to remember. She saw little outside the obscuring fog, save that great rolling oceans of grey parted before their presence – the shades, she thought. All stood still but for the draft that carried her – and as she sped by she saw gaunt, staring eyes following her, and wondered if Hades was being considerate, seeking to protect her from fear by escorting her this way. Then again, she realized with a start, those who do not recall the way in to the labyrinth of the great underworld cannot find their way out. And she had no choice but to follow. In this world hidden from the sun, all Kore knew was he.

A dark shape, solid as the fogs were vaporous, loomed before them, a great fortress of obsidian, but Hades did not stop at its doors. In they swept, past great vaulted ceilings glinting dimly with precious metals and yawning alleys lit by one fluttering candle, finally arriving before a wall, heavily embossed with gold and jewels. Kore saw giants flinging ruby fire and gilded thunder at one another while the earth opened dark jaws under them, and great green snakes with eyes of emerald swam in the ether.

The hidden door swung open with hardly a sound.

"Your rooms, lady," said Hades, materializing behind her.

Kore heard his breath close to her ear, and was seized by sudden panic, wondering if the darts of Eros made this not her chamber tonight but their chamber, and if her bed was rather his bed.

"Milord," she said, and was shamed to hear the fear in her voice – but her words stopped as she felt him bending his face to her neck, where her pulse fluttered beneath the skin. His hair fell upon her shoulder – soft and inky as the shadows around them. Then he turned his head, his mouth inches from her throat, his breath raising the hairs on her head.

"Yes?" he said, so close that she felt the small hiss of air from his mouth.

Kore shut her eyes tightly, turning her head from his nearness, her heart bounding within her until she thought she would faint. But he did not move, merely stood stock-still, craned to the warmth of her throat.

Then he sighed and the moment was past.

But Kore would not be sent to her rooms, a prisoner and penitent. Fear had turned itself to anger, digging deep within her again.

"Hades," she said, his name like ash and blood upon her tongue. Turning she faced him, and felt the anger in her stomach burn like acid and fire through the thick coat of her fear.

Only for now, for this moment; but it would have to be enough.

"You are weak," she said.

The rest of the words followed, as if of their own will.

"You hypocrite – how can you deride the gods for their caprice and whims, when you yourself succumb to the first temptation? How dare you speak of duty to me? It is your duty to remember every uttered word, is it not, milord? Then I hope you remember every falsehood you have ever spoken; every trick you have played on me to bring me here."

Her voice grew as she spoke, the words flew as if driven like chariot horses by the tension of her fear.

"Love? You dare speak of love to me, whom you have made prisoner? You cannot love - you are just like them, like those brothers you abhor; a rutting beast! And if ever you dare come near my bed; I swear by the fates and all that is powerful within this earth that I will – "

Suddenly with a great crack the stones beneath her feet parted as a great shadow sprang out, brandishing barbed tentacles, like some creature of the sea erupting in a shower of rubble. Kore uttered a shriek and jumped back – a demon of Hades! – but stopped when she saw the shape turn on him. It fell upon him with the muted crack of bending branches, which fastened with such speed and violence upon his body that she only had a glimpse of indignant surprise upon his face before his whole body was covered over with needled vines of darkest green.

Then Kore, remembering that the Lord of the Dead could have no power over anything living – growing – realized this monstrosity was of her own devising. Nay, not conscious devising, perhaps, but this thing obeyed her wishes and attacked him; it grew and fed from her. She of flowers and spring trees had somehow, in the run of her anger, created this.

The spiky green sphere was engaged in a battle with the inhabitant it trapped; like a python it wound tighter and tighter into itself.

Suddenly all the anger went out of her. Kore felt sick, with each deadly twisting of the plant she became more disgusted. She was not supposed to be capable of this; she had only sang of life-giving rain, of grass fresh as mountain snow, and here, here was not a thing of beauty; it was not even anything that lived upon the earth and drank from the sun. In anger, she had perverted life; and she, the daughter of harvest.

Yet it was saving her from Hades.

Kore felt the strange desire to laugh, and cry, and beat the ground.

The green sphere suddenly was engulfed in fire, from which Hades extricated himself, looking the worse for wear. There were deep scratches on his arms; Kore saw the welts through his torn sleeve, and a cut on one check that bled sullenly. Her monstrous savior lay in a smoking pile on the ground.

He said nothing, only wiped the blood from his check with a frown, and vanished.

For a long moment Kore clenched and unclenched her fists, trembling. Anger had gone, as quickly and silently as it had come, leaving a husk of exhaustion. A vague corner of her mind celebrated the fact that she had made the Lord of Dead beat a quick retreat. Another recoiled from the burning, smoking heap that she had made. She was too tired to consider either. And turning from charred wreck, Kore stepped into her room.

Soft rugs engulfed her feet and the ceilings flew high above her. Kore did not remember falling in bed.

* * *

Sleep, brother of Death, descended swiftly to those in the lands of the dead, though they be unwilling to close their eyes to the dark. Kore slept, burrowed deep into the rich blankets of her bed, and dreamed.

Past the great Cerberus she walked, averting her eyes, with the Lord of Souls her guide.

Yet what folly, thought she as they passed the deep gorge, to be afraid of a dog when she followed the greatest beast in the land. And so she glanced back, wishing for a clearer glance at the monstrous thing, and found it looking back at her. Its middle head had drawn away from the other two, and bent down until it was near her face.

Her hair flew away from her face as Cerberus huffed slowly, not so much in menace as in appraisal. Kore held her breath, frozen in half-turned stance while the great creature gazed upon her, dark eyes under furrowed brows, and breathed again – quite deliberately – in her face. No basilisk he, yet she found herself entranced. Unthinking she lifted a hand to lay it on the cold snout, speaking her name to the wind.

The beast tilted his head until it looked upon her with just one eye. And gazing back Kore saw with wonder that its eye was not pitch-black after all, but a whirlpool of all colors under the sun melding, green and red into dun, and that with blue to swallow all the lighter shades in darkness. Cerberus blinked, slowly, and Kore saw colors leap out from the great pool, flying in streaks across her vision, so quickly they were but burning shadows before her eyes. Like dying stars they appeared and passed, the color of sea and sky and the glowing sun.

Her mother had shown her once how the shells of certain beetles could be crushed and ground until they turned the deepest, truest red, and she had been astounded, seeing the shiny black plates take on the hue of roses as they turned to dust. So the great eye seemed to Kore, pulling her only memories of the green-blue ocean from bottomless wells, shining with a strange light of its own.

And then it was over, the great head shook off her cold hand as it would a fly, and the creature fidgeted, growling and snorting again.

"Careful," Hades said from behind her, "his bite is fatal."

And then she woke, his voice low in her ears.


	7. Flame and Hope

A/N: this is a mix of two chapters, Flame and Hope (hence title), only change being Hades does not meet Kore at the bottom of the steps to insure her of his good intentions. Really. Who said he had any? Cheers.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Flame and Hope**

Confusion, as she opened her eyes – for the numbness of the previous night had gone. Kore held still and gathered herself.

A light shone in her eyes. Brighter than a candle it hovered in the air – a small sphere of flame – tracing circles, glowing red then orange then white-blue, dispelling the long shadows of her chamber. For though she felt it to be morning, here in death no sun marked the dawn from night, and the shadows are ever-long.

Kore held her hand to the light; it glowed red through her fingers, but she felt nothing. Even flames had no warmth here. She withdrew her hand, disappointed, and found the note lying on the redwood chest beside her bed.

_A gift_, it said.

Anger welled up in her again. Kore felt a sudden desire to drown the thing, and was surprised at herself. Last night was the first time she had felt anger – for, with her mother, her ire had never went beyond annoyance.

A cloak of wolf's fur hung at the edge of her bed, and a silver tray lay on a small stool before the hearth. Kore pulled on the cloak for it was cold; she did not touch the food.

The ghost-flame followed her where she walked, and hovered above the food as if expectant.

"I am not hungry," she said to it, feeling the annoyance and anger boiling up again.

And the flame changed, white to orange, at her words, and it passed over the food to rest near her hand. A gift.

"Are you to be my guide, then?" whispered Kore, opening her palm and the fire sat upon it like a small breath of wind, glowing yellow then white in assent.

"Very well," she said.

Nothing stirred in the castle as Kore emerged from her rooms; the great dragon-doors shut behind her, gold glinting dimly from the light of the ghost-flame. A charred patch of carpet was all that remained to show her last night was no dream. At least, she thought, it was a large patch of carpet.

Through a tall corridor she walked, under the grand arch of the dark stone ceiling, her bare feet scuffling softly. Beside her hung great pictures framed in gilded panes, spanning the height and breadth of the hall; she had not the time to notice them last night.

Kore saw that they were scenes of struggle – battles of men, which at the beginning were small skirmishes of rocks and sticks, but as she walked on she saw then men donning heavy wooden shields and glinting armor, riding beasts and machines – but always, always this mass of writhing bodies, a sea of furied faces, a catacomb of eyes, all of them trained on her, following her, as if imploring from her the reason for all their woes. And as she went on she realized it no longer showed the times she knew, but other-times, a world of calamitous seas, towers of strange shapes that reflected the fires in the sky. There men died by the thousands, more than thousands, bursting into flame, barely-registered surprise on their faces as they fell to the ground. And the weeping, always the women weeping, as their children scampered madly through the flames.

Then she passed through an archway, turned right, and there were no more pictures.

Remembering her dream, she returned to Cerberus. But to reach her destination Kore trekked the Land of the Dead by foot, each cold and unyielding inch. Shades saw her and scattered, and Kore had the merest impression of gaunt faces and staring eyes before they gave way about her, spreading like the waves on a still pool broken by rain.

Everywhere the glowing fog, everywhere the grey-brown land. Perhaps the flame led her nowhere, or in circles, and she could walk this place for all the eons of existence and not come to an end, for there could be no end to death. She wanted the sun, slanting in through marbled columns, and warmth and light, and her mother's voice, singing as ripe grain scattered on the polished floor of her home.

Home, it burned in her like a wound.

In the living lands under the sky she could hear each blade of grass humming to the dewdrop at the edge of its blade, each branch of the tree whistling with the symphony of the wind. Here all was silent, for the land and hills and mountains had no words, no memories but for the first darkness and then this – grey.

The air was still but for the sudden breeze that blew in her face as she made her way to farther and farther from the fortress. Kore's nose picked up the faint scent of river and mud and sand in the wind, and each time it passed she seemed to hear – somewhere far away – the sigh of an exhaled breath.

"Is that a new shade, then?" she realized suddenly.

The flame glowed white in assent.

Such were deaths here, a breeze that faded into stillness. Kore remembered how her mother had told her that all things alive are made of that which died or were dead, that a man eating the young ewe on the sacrifice table turned the parts of that ewe into himself – his liver and his skin and his hair. And so each dying thing lived and breathed and died again under the sun, and was no true death – expect when humans died. For they had a little of that which was like the gods in them; not a god, or even a god's toenail, and yet at the same time they were not made entirely of things that had-lived. A little part disappeared from the world with dying, goes to the underworld and does not come back again – yet it was not the part that spoke or walked or caused wars and had children, but something that Demeter could not explain. Kore had thought of them like the green grass broken by the first frost that lie still, preserved in their memories of greenness under a covering snow.

The shades in death were nothing as she had imagined them. It seemed that they knew fear, for they ran from her sight, but little else did they know, gliding blankly past one another unrecognized, blank eyes and thin faces. They were the farthest thing from the living, loving, angry, moving things in the portraits before her door, who prayed at Demeter's temple, dreaming of ripe fields and fertile sheep, of children and prosperous lives, of horrid misfortunes to their enemies.

Mountains sprang suddenly out of the mist, and Kore saw that they were nearing the borders of Hades' lands. Something about those dark crags made her pause. She had not noticed it before, but there was a certain symmetry to them that reminded her of the great walls of men, almost as if the mountains were hauled out of nothingness into being, not by nature, but by some_one_. Hades? She wondered. Perhaps he, too, tired of the monotony of his kingdom after millennia.

Moving close Kore bent down to brushed her fingers against the grey edges of the cliff, and found that it came away under her touch like loosest sand, falling like dust to the ground in a small shower.

Kore withdrew her arm, startled. The four lines of her fingers scored the side of the mountain. How was it that here in death, where the land was hard and the skies are ceilings of rock clouded over– how was it that the mountains fell down like water, and the hills were but a large pile of gathered dust?

She paused there, staring at the handful of dust in her palm and finally pocketing it. The flame had waited, and now it led her through the tunnel between the towering peaks. Kore walked lightly, careful not to brush against the tall shadows for fear that her lightest touch may bring a collapse.

She smelled Cerberus before she heard him – a scent of warm fur and river and also something else that she could not place. Kore suddenly wondered at herself, coming here to this beast on a dream she could not understand, and unafraid because Hades had said, _nothing in this realm will harm you_.

It was because Hades had always spoken true, even though she accused him of lying. The danger lay in things unsaid.

Ascending a small slope was Cerberus, his heads poised proudly, his fur gleaming and deep. As she came close he saw her and shook his heads, pawed the ground, doglike. Then to her astonishment he raised his heads and howled – or roared – it mattered little which, only that the ground shook with the noise, and the mountains by him rattled and gave off a great cloud of dust that clouded her eyes and nose.

When it cleared she saw that Cerberus dug at the ground furiously, with paws and jaws, deep into the wet sands by the Styx. The sand flew around him and the heads above ground rolled about, growling in effort. He dug until black water welled out of the hole– the water of Hate, wetting his muzzle and his teeth, and Cerberus grimaced in response, only to bend down again into the large gash in the ground.

At last he emerged, moving half of his bulk out of the pit the earth. His jaws were full of dark wet sand, dripping, and he spat the lot before her feet, sand, water, and all. Looking down she realized it was not some madness that possessed the creature, for lying the black pile were small flecks of white, gleaming dimly, neither sand nor rock. She bent down and picked one up.

It looked – for all the things in the world – like a seed.

The great beast shook his heads, the massive chest heaving, and stared at her.

"Why –" Kore took a step closer, and felt a sudden pain under her foot. She yelped, her leg giving out under her and she fell onto the ground in surprise.

A shard of obsidian rock jutted up where there had only been smooth sand, and had cut her. Kore inspected the cut, a small gash across the arch of her foot, welling with a streak of blood that traced an arc and then dripped off the edge of her heel, into the ground.

Then, from the mark where she had bled – a small dark spot in the wet, hard sand, there sprung an upright branch of green, shooting from the ground and exploding with white flowers.

Asphodel.

The gift-flame hovered above the apparition, and in its light Kore saw with wonder the tracing of delicate veins in the petals, the glossiness of the leaves. The little flowers shone pure under the mock-sun, and Kore reached out to touch one, feeling the smooth life that flowed within – and then it crumbled, flowers, stalk, and all, wilting as fast as it had sprung. There it lay on the beach, turned into sand again.

Kore looked up at Cerberus.

"Things can grow here." she said, amazed.

This place, this windblown home of thousand shades, wrought of the dust of ages, the dust that their master has tried in vain to shape into valleys and mountains and hills and castles – living things can grow here.

For a time Kore just sat upon the cold sand, a small handful of seeds cupped in her palm, watching the dim light on the undulating waters of the Styx. Beside her Cerberus sat quietly on his haunches, two heads looking across the great river, one looking at her. And then Kore started to laugh, laugh until tears squeezed themselves past the corners of her eyes, and then she was weeping and laughing all at once, trying to dry her face on her sleeves and failing. Things can grow here; it was only a matter of finding the right place, the right hill, the right corner of hell, and the seeds - life - would grow.


	8. Blood

A/N: Finally a real update! A short synopsis of changes: Kore is less than perfectly willing to be kidnapped, and in her anger she creates this monstrous vine-shrubbery thing (if you've seen minority report, the thing that stings Tom Cruise in the neck, only bigger) that attacks Hades, who then decides to leave his lovely bride alone. Neither does he come back the next day to reassure her of his intentions. Kore, meanwhile, is confused about the turn that her magic has taken, from daisies and sunshine to the attacking plant of doom.

sorry for changing things up. But the way the story was going before, I didn't feel the force of Kore's personality at all.

Onward and forward!

* * *

**Chapter 7: Blood **

The obsidian rock that had cut her foot stood firmly in the sand. Kore pulled on it, and was startled by the sharpness of its bite; and taking her hand away she saw the thin cut it had made, running down her palm, seeping red. Closing and opening her hand was painful, and the cut did not heal quickly, as it did in the sunlit lands. Kore had rarely felt pain for longer than a second; and the sensation now, the streak of red burning along her palm, distracted her.

From where this drop of her blood fell on the ground, another shoot of asphodel.

Intent upon the rock, however, Kore ignored the little flower, and instead wrapped the edge of her skirt on the sharp thing, and freed it slowly from the hard sand. It dislodged slowly, unwillingly, and in the air she saw that it was as long as a blade – curved and sharp, the length of her forearm.

Her mother had once said anything that could draw the blood of a god, and anything stained with the blood of a god was sacred; there was power in it, from the power that ran in her veins. It was the power of that blood which gave rise to the little flower that even now stood upright on the ground. Kore remembered her fear of yesternight, when the God of the Dead bent to the pulse of her neck. She did not for a second believe herself capable of slaying him, of actually plunging a knife into his heart. Indeed, being deathless, he would likely pull it out and laugh at her stupidity.

Yet there may be times when a knife could prove useful. So Kore used its edge to tear off a long strip of her dress – the thick fabric parted easily under the blade – and wrapped the cloth around the duller end, making a handle for it. The other end of the fabric she wound about her waist, tying it to the side, and when she was finished the black rock hung like a fan from the sash. It was lighter than she thought.

It was then that she noticed the asphodel. It was still alive; resolutely so, waving a little with the breeze. It had not crumbled into dust, like the last flower. And neither of them had come from a seed – a drop of her own blood was enough.

Confused, Kore knelt down on the sand, reaching for the green leaves. It felt real, as real as the last one, yet it seems to be hardier –

No sooner had she thought that when the second shoot of asphodel also withered under her hand, and dissolved.

Kore frowned.

Then she remembered the frightful thing that had flung itself at Hades – and knew at once that her magic, since her imprisonment in the lightless world, had gone horribly wrong. It was her touch that killed the asphodel.

Taking the knife from side, Kore nicked her thumb – she had to do it twice, since the first was not deep enough. Wincing at the sting, she pressed her thumb and forefinger together until two drops of blood fell on barren ground. Two flowers sprang up, as if at her command.

She touched one; it fell. The other stood unfazed.

* * *

Cerberus had watched her, quietly huffing, three tongues hanging out of their respective mouths, giving the occasional scowling yawn. Kore stood and took a tentative step near him, more tentative than she had done in her dream, but he did not growl or snap at her, as she had feared. The giant dog closed its eyes, and placed a large head beneath her outstretched hand; and she, passing her fingers through his thick fur, smell river and sand and warm, _live_ animal.

"At least my touch doesn't seem to harm you," she said as wet nostrils traversed over her palms, "and it certainly doesn't harm him."

The dog snorted; she couldn't decide if it was a coincidence, but petted him some more.

"It's so lonely here, I don't know how you stand the silence, and the wind. All day you hear only your thoughts, running through your head and spilling over like the spring flood.

"I don't suppose you know where I should plant these?" she asked the beast, who raised its head with a serious look, and nudged her away with its head. She was on her own, then.


	9. Tartarus

A/N: a...timely update? what is this? Many thanks for all the reviewers who took the time to look at this, **Charlie Chaplin 2**, **one mourning dove**, **TheZopistuttle**, **blackpen**, N, and V. It really helped me keep going. Replies are coming!!

* * *

**Chapter 8: Tartarus**

And she stood there with Cerberus, the scene almost domestic – the mistress and the master's hunting dog – Kore tried to plan, but could not think. The land whispered questions and then kept silent. She was no mistress here; captive, yes, and prisoner – not mistress, or secret-keeper, or one to be told its mysteries. The land ruled her, guided by dark paths she knew not, transforming her to a dark thing, unfit under sun and wind. This was her challenge, make fruitful the barren ground though her own touch be death.

She sought to bring joy to hell, Kore had told Hades.

Was this her hell, then – to remember joy but be its opposite, to see life only in its leaving, and be her own dark sister?

Perhaps there had been two of her, on that sunny day when she fell. And the other Kore had not fallen, but stayed in the flowering valley, and had returned to her mother. The other Kore had not cut herself on the diamond eyes of the Lord of the Dead; the other dance and sang, and did not know darkness.

From a small tremble, a slight shake which drew a sprinkle of sand from the mountains – descending with the soft melody of the brook in the spring – from thence, the earth shook until it roared.

Sky quaked, the ground roiled up in rage, and Kore was breathless, thrown against the sand and huddled there beside one giant paw of Cerberus'. The river Styx threw flung its inky depths into the sky, which descended like a shower of dark missiles. Dark waters welled up from the sand in putrid springs, flowing about her ankles, staining her dress, burning like hot acid into the wound in her foot. Kore shrieked and pulled herself upright against Cerberus, though he shook his heads and roared.

"Mother –" she whispered, fearfully, futilely against the dark fur, and then – because her mother was not here, and her mother would not be coming – "Hades!"

But he was already by her side, setting her on the back of Cerberus with a grip that brooked no argument. The dog he calmed with a wave.

The land bubbled grimly about them, a marsh of dark decay, and the sky was dark with fumes and dust of mountains, leveled now. The stench of long death filled the air, curling up from the pits.

"What is happening?" Kore gasped, choking on her very breath.

He stood ankle deep in black water, his face ghostly pale.

"Tartarus heaves," he said.

She watched, shivering against Cerberus, as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Tar lapped about his feet as against a statue. His head was tilted, as if listening; his hands were fists at his sides.

Was he lord of this world, she wondered, or its servant?

"They have seen you," he said, "do not touch the water."

And then she, too, heard it. Not a voice, or any sound, but it sprung forth from the silent depths of the black earth, the sullen bubbling of the murky water: a prayer – or desire, or lust, or yearning – so strong that her bones shook with it.

_Warmth._

_Breath._

_Blood._

They wanted her; she was not enough, but she would suffice.

Kore had been prayed to; she knows the soft, laughing voices of young girls, fluttering like leaves on saplings. But this – oh it was more than she had never thought – drawing across her like a wall of water, pouring into her and filling her eyes and mouth. Voiceless it roared until she was deaf, until a pit opened before her feet and all she felt was the dark air rushing – fast and faster.

There was Hades; she felt him – freezing it with fire, waking it with pain to bind and to restrain, iron ropes and stone chambers glowing red-hot with anger. And behind it, the crackling, icy crystals of fear, like the dangerous thawing lake of late winter.

Oh yes, he feared.

Then the voices disappeared, and Kore was pulled out of her trance, for the Hades standing guard roared suddenly, and fell upon his side and clawed at the sand. A snakelike arm wrapped about his foot, trying to pull him down. Kore did not even think; she leapt and fell off Cerberus's back, and, taking her knife, began to cut away at the thing. It was no animal, nor plant, but like the sands itself winding around the foot of its lord, and cutting the sand did little.

"Here!" he held out his arm.

She gave him her hand then, not because he was the only thing left between her and that deeper dark, but because he had reached for hers.

The snake disappeared as suddenly as it had come; and the sand began to spill downward where it had faded, and the ground grew soft under them, as if they stood upon a running hour glass. It was Hades now who pulled her along as her feet gave way; then lifting her, and she sat atop Cerberus again.

"Do not touch the water," he breathed, his face gaunt with pain, and looking down she saw with horror that the vise had left burn marks on his heavy boots, and charred skin showed under them, livid and raw as the wound he still bore upon his breast.

The earth settled and the sky cleared, and the black waters receded. Where the ground had reached for him, there was now a gaping hole, a well falling into the dark.

"Tartarus?" The word itself was fear.

"Yes," he said, faintly.

A silence, while they breathed.

"I have touched the water," she whispered.

And he, turning, saw the wound burning black and red and purple upon her foot.


	10. Remember

A/N: A long wait... but at least this is a good 4, 5 (?) chapter update! Replies are always appreciated, and effusive thanks to those who reviewed in the past: Wise Owl Athena (I finally updated! yay), Casa Circe, Sugarlumpkins, Itachi-hates-you, Silent Voices, and of course, Charlie Chaplin2, Zorpistuttle, one mourning dove, and V. Effuuuusive thanks.

* * *

Chapter 10: Remember

Three days. Three days had passed, perhaps more, for she had few ways to figure time here – or perhaps less, for the pain lengthened every hour. Three days and Kore thought of many things – of darkness mostly, her mind wrapping itself in a pall of fear, a growing, suffocating cocoon without a hope of light's return.

She remembered lambs, the young and white and tender fur trembling; the scarlet gash, the warm sigh of death – a clean death. She would not have their innocence – not now – for though she knew the same fear, the dark had gone into the wound, the dark had taken root, and festered.

More than thoughts or remembrance was the pain. She could not recall what it meant to be without its constant call, swelling and dimming and whirling about as heavy grounded fog, closing vise-like around her mind, distracting her from herself. She chased wild ghosts down winding paths, only to see her face reflected in the poisoned wells. She flew white and glowing in the darkened halls, and surfaced with nothing but scattered, half-thought words, vanishing like smoke.

Kore thought of death.

* * *

They sat in a spire of his fortress, opened on one side to the quelling wind that swept through his realm. 

"What is it like, in Tartarus?" she asked him, on the third day after he had seen her bleed and gone silent.

He held his silence, and she waited.

Almost companionable, his presence, he who came and stayed with the pain.

"It is to forget all else but madness, and dark," he said.

"You have seen?" she turned to him.

"I have been, but once," was the reply, thin lips curling in remembrance – a snarl.

"A mortal of great power: the passing of her spirit like an untamed star blinded me for days, and I sought for her where she had gone, into the dark, as the fools that follow stars are led to doom."

Her name he did not know – but the mortal herself had forgotten it. A thousand and three score years ago he had followed her, plunging through the still surface of the darkest places, and it had sealed behind him without a sound. As he fell past water, ether and flames, he sifted her story from the memory of the burn.

She had died in dry lands where the stars were strange. Painted men and drums and fire – burning red shadows, a day, then three, then a week – scorching, but she was alive, for she herself was flame. Then sand; cool, hard sand enveloping, until only her head was held above. A hideous rain of rock. They fell; cut and crushed and broken, she bled into the dry earth and whispered sullen curses through broken teeth and bleeding tongue and matted hair. They covered her over, sand and more sand, and more, and still she cursed them under her breath, the most terrible curses known and unknown to gods and men. She breathed the mud of her own dark blood, and cursed into the night that her soul might be yielded in exchange that they might suffer. And they did.

Hades followed her into Tartarus.

That it was dark, he had expected. He could see well in the dark. That it was cold, he could withstand. But the deepest recesses of hell were empty, save for himself.

He wandered, until the scores on his vision faded to grey, until the darkness resolved itself in silent stone. He counted time, and set off one way, walking untiringly a day, a week, a month.

Nothing.

And suddenly he wondered to himself what he did, wandering so. And looking upon his garments he did not remember ever having seen them. Whose cloak and belt and tunic? Whose hands were these? Whose limbs moving without thought or way – whose eyes and fingers and blood and boots and ground and wind and memories? What memories – what name? All lost, all bewilderment, all forgotten.

All forgotten. There alone in the dry lands he disremembered his name.

"I knew nothing," he said, shifting in his seat, "nothing."

The wind blew, and Kore was still.

"But I was bleeding."

A trail, upon the ground, from his own blood – a cut in the shoulder that ran heedless down his fingers, marking his way. And he – or it, the mindless thing that stood in his place – for lack of all else, followed it, a day, a week a month, walking without tire. A grey world it was but for the trail, unending, unchanging and silent, until the end where a pool caught the light strangely. He stood underneath its waves and looked up, and saw streaks of silver that was the mortal's way to her own, private hell. Only then did he remember. Hades.

"They will not have you," he said.

Kore was silent.


	11. Linger

A/N: onward!

* * *

Chapter 11: Linger

Wakefulness spread into sleep, like drops of blood plunged in clear water. Seven days since the beginning of mortality; three days since pain invaded her sleep and wrenched rest from her; one day since dreams melded with the dark. Kore blinked away the spots – purple, blue, and black – ripples spreading on the still pond of her vision.

Hades was called away. A royal summons, no doubt – she saw it burning in his mind, sparking white and red – and he had bade her stay, and rekindled the little were-light.

Her lone companion, the flame. Brighter than before – it burned marks upon her eyes – purple, blue and black. Too bright.

If she had gone with Hades – as if she could – she knew that even now he stood upon white marbled steps flooded with glorious light – a blink; it hurt her eyes. Crystal eyes pierced by pain, skin washed white with light that seeps and permeates and erases and obliterates. Too bright.

She was here below, where he bade her stay.

Something nagged on her mind. Not the pain – she had forgotten which foot was in pain, it all burned so – not that. Kore remembered the smell – salty as of the sea, and warm and bristling, eyes rolling and a growl: Cerberus. Cerberus had called for her, and she had gone. Cerberus had given her gifts. Seeds. And she would plant them, somewhere where they cannot be destroyed; plant them, and not touch them, but water them with her blood.

All it asked for was her life – and she was dying already. It would be a good exchange, for flowers were scarce here.

The seeds rattled a little – little coins, a fare for the passage – when she stuck her fingers in.

* * *

Heart heavy, mind astray, her bandaged feet carried her swiftly across the dusty windy ground. The flame followed her; and Kore sang quietly to herself. A song long ago, remembered in dreams, a song of flowers struck by the last spring freeze, broken still and cold upon the ground; a song of new birds awoken too early to the fickle promise of early warmth, taken in their nests. What loveliness, she thought; what wild, surprised, fearful, awesome loveliness – in a little death, a little too early, in all of its beauty. 

The fog parted before her with a lingering lover's touch, tangled in her hair – dewdrop on her lips.

She stood by the pit.

She listened, past the dull drum of blood in her ears, past the singing, whistling wind, past the rustle her dress made on the ground. Kore closed her eyes to the bright little flame that hover over her shoulder, saw its imprint bleed red behind her eyelids – that, and something else.

The pit was ready; warm, solid, pulsing faintly with eagerness.

From it will spring a tree, flowering and fruiting, that will not wither – watered from herself it will stand until the ending of the world, towering, bursting with green, full of life, full of light. A spring will flow forth from it, to quench the thirst of dry spirits. And its water, such clear water, bubbling laughing will flow like starlight weaved in fog and mirrors.

All dug, all ready for flowering. A little water, perhaps, and a handful of soil – blessed soil, for was she not a goddess of growing, living things?

She moved to the river – the Styx, silent and still – quiet in the breathing wind. Bending, then to rise, two hands cupped and a little water held between, poured into the pit. The first time it fell too close to the side. She heard it dropping on the sand – and she went back to the river, its cold stinging red into her hands. Another handful cast.

Kore knelt, smooth cold sand rubbing gently upon her knees and ankles, two hands cupped, a little sand in between. But – not right, she thought –the seeds need soil, not sand, and where to find soil here, but –

The spirit, the one Hades had followed into the dark, Kore remembered her.

The gash of a blade upon her palm, and quiet drops into the sand – dark as night, even under the were-flame. A handful of mud now, stinging and cold. A little prayer, and that went quietly into the pit.

Kore stood, already weary.

The string tying the pouch of seeds was rough to the touch, leathery and stiff. She pulled it open, rattling the seeds, strip of cloth falling heedless upon the ground. One, two – twelve she counted, spots of white falling into the dark.

Silence.

_Do not touch the water,_ Hades had said, _lest the blackness reaches back for your hand._

She heard voices, vast choruses singing songs in lightless lands, a sound broken off in the sudden darkness of eyelids shutting. A slit of light in between, a split second – then no more; only blackness spreading forth, covering her, and then the falling, dark and darker night.


	12. Follow

Chapter 12: Follow and Forget

From the Unreal City Hades returned, fuming, blinking red welts from his eyes on the long way down to his home. Few words were adequate for the rage – at his brothers, his sisters, the fools that thought ugliness could be purified by the garish sun, that pierced hearts and sworn vows can be undone at a whim, that the wound burning like acid into his breast was a mere joke. Yet he knew Demeter's madness, for Demeter's pain was his pain too. Hers was according to her bond, a mother's unreasoning, sheltering, clinging protectiveness. And his according to his curse, unconsummated desire and frustration and guilt at the loveliness etching its name ever deeper into his heart – his pain, a kidnapper's pain, a monster's pain.

Fewer words, if possible, were adequate for the foreboding rising in his throat like mortal bile, thick and black and bitter. Kore was fading. The bleak lands had leeched nothing, he could leech nothing from her glow, but the poison – running rampant through her veins, driving her mad with pain and him mad with fear – such was mortal poison. And into what darkness she would go, pale and wide-eyed, untried and oh so lovely, into what horror she would fall – the thought brought such a pain to his chest that it could not been solely from the wound he bore.

_They will not have you,_ he had promised her, not knowing how he might contrive such a thing – he who had been brought so easily to his knees, he who so easily forgot his name.

_They will not have you. _There was no 'they', Hades knew. There was no thing, only the inky cloak of Tartarus enveloping – and his own mind, weaving for himself a fate worse than all. She cannot end like that – so young – he would take her away, even to the light if he had to –

But that would be no use. The call is everywhere. The impulsion, irresistible. And he, ruler of all the worlds save that of his own monstrous hell, could only stand, and watch.

Wrapped in cloudy thoughts Hades moved through the dark caverns of the earth, insensible of the swirling, spinning maelstrom until too late. With a choked cry, he broke the surface of the dark, and it sealed behind him without a sound.

Tartarus bubbled forth and took back its lord and slave.

* * *

A blind, ripped away. Shoulder blades, sticking in the sand. Sitting – white hands, long cloak. Legs bent at unnatural angles, heavy black boots. He stood and looked about him, sore, head pounding.

Darkness. Yet he could see himself.

Puzzlement, as something unremembered tugged urgently at the edges of his thoughts, then pulled itself away violently. His headache was worse.

Who – foreboding – blinding light – but how did he come – and his name forgotten – a tall spire – was there? – and the wind – is that the name for it – no no the red, the black, purple burns –important – whispers – eyelids smoothed–– dark – flowers red – steps – up up up, go – empty.

He did not remember this.

All empty again.

Pain – arrows and a lilting laughter – water running – green – lustrous curls – faded into bone and dust – a rain of stones under strange stars – curses curses raining up – a pit – run away away from it oh so far – empty.

He did not remember.

All empty.

Poppies. Poppies and clouds – and a sky so blue – and the rain like chill drops of light wrapping about him – small hands white-knuckled – smooth and white and down down down down like glistering– empty.

_Again_.

Again.

Blue skies and hail and sleet – holes into his skull and cutting at his eyes, too bright too bright – anger and fear and crystals – like wind over the summer barley -

Again.

His favorite flower – fast – red as blood – raining down the sky – and the song -

The song.

It stayed.

The song.

He hummed, and it came, a song, pouring from all the corners of his mind, pouring without stop, without cease, flowing without end or dearth, covering the dry expanse of the world.

Not so dark after all.

He hummed to himself.

There was a light, a glow far away.

He could walk.

He would not tire.


	13. To Begin Again

Chapter 13: To Begin Again

A long time, walking. He swung one foot before the other, and hummed quietly to himself.

He did not tire.

After the third day, the light grew brighter. He was getting close.

On the fifth, a shadow, and the girl who cast it.

The light sat on her shoulders, too bright.

Her cheekbones threw shadows on her face. Bright eyes, curved and sweeping brows.

He looked at the fluid dance of darkness and light across the white expanse of her back, and remembered a little of what beauty meant. So despite the bothersome light burning in his eyes, he sat down where he was, to look upon her. There were words for it, he knew, for the line of her throat, the curve of her cheeks, the curl of her hair, words that would do. But he remembered none.

A long time, while he sat in the dark and gazed on her, sure now that this is what he had come to see – the light and song leading him, gathered both in her – spiraling from her like rising smoke, weaving wreathes of shadowed laurel upon the smoothness of her brow.

She spoke; her voice was nameless heaven.

"My mother told me that, to see where it is dark, you must strike a light," she must have been talking to the flame, "Yet with you here, I see nothing but my own shadow, and the boundless dark."

She held out hands – _small, white knuckled_ – small hands cupping the little flame which lit her face from below, her eyes shining pools and her forehead, curved exquisite.

He noticed her foot was wrapped, but red had seeped through white bandages.

"Persephone," she whispered – a name he did not know – the sadness of her voice striking at him, "he knew, when he called me Persephone: s_he who swallows the light._"

And the little flame, brought to red lips, opened in a breath – then the movement of her throat, but he must have imagined it, for all plunged into dark again.

* * *

He could see quite well in the dark, he realized. He saw that she sat there still, her head turning and turning in quick movements like a little owl, small hands rubbing across her eyes, dashing at the sand.

A cry, a howl, as from tender throats unused to despair.

"Blind! I am blind! O lord, I see nothing.."

It wrenched his heart.

"O dark, oh dark dark dark…" when her shoulders began to heave, he held still no longer.

"Hush," he said, standing and moving to her, "I can see. Hush. It's alright. I can see for you."

She gasped, springing from her seat, emerging words a strangled cry as her wounded foot collapsed beneath her, and there was a name in her words, another name he did not know.

"You should sit," he said, almost upon her now.

Gasping, she said it again.

He placed hands upon her shoulders, sure and firm against her blind reaching, and drew her down beside him.

"Hush, you are hurt."

White cold hands moved in shadowed swiftness over his arms, brushing against his throat, tracing the lines of his face - brow and eyes and lips and jaw. He blushed, for he had never been touched so.

Tears glittered like starlight. She said it again, and then, "where have you been?"

He said, "I have been walking, a long time, to find you."

"It knew," she whispered, "it knew – I could live with forgetting but not to live in the dark. I've been so afraid. Here, it's so big, and there are shadows even the light can't dispel– oh, help me. Help me, please, please take me away, tell me how can we leave this place?"

"Leave?" he was puzzled. It was pleasant here, now, with her.

She was silent then, shivering. Again, butterfly fingers flitting to his face.

"You have forgotten. Oh I'm sorry, I am so sorry – " and the tears did not stop, they bubbled forth and fell like scattered diamonds, glistening.

"Why weep?" he asked, gently.

She shook her head and the fabric of his shirt grew damp.

"You should not weep, so lovely and so sad," he said.

Her head shook, more vigorously this time.

"All my fault," she said, "it's all my fault, I am sorry, so sorry. I never should have gone, I should have listened to you and never gone to the river, oh I was delirious and mad to have gone – or never followed a stupid dream, or never spoke to you in the first place, that day in the mountain – look where it has come. It's all wrong now; all wrong."

A strange creature, full of words and wonder. He looked at her, smiling a little.

"It was I spoke to you first," he said, wondering why she needed this reminding, "and I am glad of it."

She choked on her tears, and he couldn't help but smile again, for in spite of her sorrow she was perfect, and he could not frown at perfection.

"Beautiful," he said, wiping away a tear, and another.

"I can help you," he said, "with forgetting. Or at least, there song that I can sing, for you."

She laughed, wetly, in spite of herself – "you've learned how to sing?"

"It is your song, I think"

And so he hummed while she listened, grown still now.

First, the melody. His voice was hoarse from disuse.

Then, a little louder, just loud enough for the dark to hear, and his mind was not so wild, and the darkness but a large room full of chimes and wind and tunes unsung, and the sand a great river of silver, and her hair glowed with a thousand points of clear light like seed pearls scattered in the ground. So lovely, her head, bent to his heart. And her voice, melting in his, fragile as a silver thread in the night, gathering up the stars; wide as oceans aglow beneath the moon.

Her hands moved to his face again, and he fell silent, content under the inspection of her soft fingers. And when, in time, she did not take them away, but smoothed a path from his brow to the hollow of his throat to his chest, and pulled close, he smiled, cautiously lifted a hand to her hair and gathered her to him.

"Love, my dearest love, don't cry."


	14. Light again

A/N: Oh my. It's gone quite a long way since my last update. Just 1 or 2 more chapters left, i think.

* * *

Chapter 14: Light

They stayed, a day a century an eon a minute – long enough, before he heard her breathing grow labored again, and her body turn cold under his fingers.

She turned her head up at him, lashes sweeping like things in flight.

"I watch the sacrifices at my mother's temple, " she said, her voice washing over him like the wind under the earth, caressing.

"The dawn breaks barely over the wide eastern plains –the sight of barley fields in the blue-red light, ripe dark shadows against the sky – I hear footsteps in the hall. Farmers today; they wear sturdy sandals of cured leather, or wooden paddles attached with a thong, but all step lightly – a whole family, laden with gifts. The man has a full beard, bright eyes with dark smiling creases spreading in webs over his temples. His wife is plump and pale, with nimble hands skilled at tapestry. And his sons, sun-kissed and wiry, heads of curly hair like their father's. And his daughter has freckles, a gap where her first teeth have fallen out; a beautiful smile. She smiles like the dawn, I know. But she is not smiling – her eyes are red from weeping after the little lamb – such a little lamb, born only this spring, only now steady on its legs. But his eyes are bright and lively, his step is sure and limber, his fur of darkest gleaming night – and that morning he shone like black opal in the dawn.

"Can you see it – barley in the air like nuggets of gold, an upward draft and the pause as they slow before the fall. The clatter is like the spring rain, tapping like a thousand rays of the sun, scattering, bubbling. And the splash of red wine on the white marble like the rush of a river from the mouth of great hollow caverns that echo its song, its slow spread over the altar, the sweetest nectar spun of water and light and sweat, coursing like blood. But lo, the red red blood sits behind the rolling eye, behind the gleaming fur, the cloven hooves, the twitching ear – like a young leaf traced with veins. And you close your eyes, to hear it bleating, knowing what is to come –

"The dimming tide, its bite is purest pleasure, and the residue is ash. The splatter and the splash, and everything a little – a little breathless – they call this sacrifice."

* * *

She drew her self up with an effort, braced against him still but upright, blind eyes blinking about her. 

"There is a knife here, hades. A blade, arm's length. I dropped it – can you see?"

And he cast his eyes about, finding a long thin rock some ways off, jutting from the sand.

"That's it, yes," she said, "please bring it to me."

He was loath to leave her – but he stood, and parting hands, walked to retrieve the blade.

She took it from him slowly, careful fingers wrapping around the handle only, a finger moving over the edge as if unsure of its sharpness. He frowned.

"What do you need it for?"

A little smile from her, and he sat down again to cradle her thin shoulders – how small she was! – against him. She had grown alarmingly cold.

"I once asked you," she said, quietly, composedly, "why you lived in dark lands, away from the sun. And you had said it was where your duty lies. I have but one more thing now – that is my duty here; for with duty comes sacrifice, this much I know, without even my mother's telling me. But the only sacrifice I have never seen and beheld with mine own eyes is sacrifice of the lamb on the white altars. I am Persephone, I am she who swallowed the light, but the light now burns in my heart, and the world is dark without it. It wishes itself freed. Wait, a little. Only one more thing now.

"I give you your name, Hades," she said, her head against his breast. Then a shudder ran through her.

Warmth, like liquid fire poured over his hands, raised boils on his skin and Hades did not need eyes to know it for blood. Thoughts and memories and pain and wounds and love and fear all came back, one instant, blinding him – but there was one thing he knew – the only thing he new, that the red blood of Persephone washing over his fingers, and her faint breaths gasping in his arms, and her life, seeping from the knife-wound in her breast. And one thing he knew, that he loved her.

"No," he was kneeling, his hands overrun, slippery with blood– the smell of it covered him, purest joy and blackest horror – but untainted, even by poison – only light, and warmth. All flowing out now.

He could see all – all of which she spoke, dawn in the fields and noon in lands and oceans far away where grapes ripened and woolen sheep ambled in green pastures rippling with the wind – but there were only tears.

And he could see, emerging from her wound, a glow.

"No," he whispered, in terror and in awe, as the glow intensified, piercing his dark-adjusted eyes and yet he could not look away, could not look away at the rising of this new sun from the body of his beloved.

She was all alight, cheeks flushed and lips of deepest red, but her eyes flashed once as the globe of light lit her face, and then were dim.

"No."

He covered his eyes now, and only held her, held only her – but longer there, not any more – held her as the star rose and blood fell from the sky like rain.


	15. Elysium

A/N: I return... from the dead, it seems. Sorry about the long hiatus from this, everyone. I felt after the last chapter that all that's left was fluffy filler, but didn't want to do that. Here's what I came up with instead.

* * *

**Chapter 15: Elysium**

Mortals would call it the Elysian Fields.

Hades woke in the light, the memory of pain obliterated by the sheer onslaught of pure radiance. Even in the Unreal City he had not known such dazzling, blinding light. His first reaction, his only reaction, was to hold her tighter to him – all that he had left of her now. But dust fell though his arms where she had been, and he looked up only to see the curve of her jaw dissolve into sand upon the ground, smoothed away by the wind.

The cavernous sky mocked him, the wavering asphodel mocked him, and glittering azure sea that rose and fell and lapped, all mocked him. Only the sun, that shone unspeakably bright in this hell over which he ruled, only it had compassion for him, blinding him with pain and scouring him with fire.

Forgetting death - forgetting himself - for those lightless moments, he had known life: a crystalline second that had burst like a pomegranate seed, splashing red passion from the taut, clear sheath of death. And now it had dried, and stained his hands and his clothes in the dark garb of blood. Now, all he would have was the remembering. The dead record of that which cannot be captured, like the cool touch of river-water on parched lips – a knowledge for which there was no substitute.

Something stirred in the ground before his feet. His eyes shot open, hope running like at once like air and lead through his veins, a thousand needles in his flesh.

He watched it burst forth from the hard ground, sending ashes spiraling in the wind; he watched as it wound upwards, unfolding leaves in a consummate embrace with the sun. He watched its bark coarsen and thicken, graceful branches like a fountain shooting skyward, and then leaves painting themselves with bold strokes of green and shadow. Flowers burst with a clarion call across the dark foliage, brilliant red, and then curled, burned crisp as the fruits globed precariously on the ends of the branches, poised to fall.

Hades sat still, looking upon the pomegranate tree. He watched the unreal hope fading in a swirl of immeasurable lightness and profound weight, and remembered, for it was all he could do. He remembered the monstrosity of barbed, suffocating vines that she set upon him like a pressing tomb, and how it had burned in his anger – but not before it had scratched him, cut him, bled him.

_A child of the skies and the meadows, earth and air. She might rule us all someday if you're not careful, Demeter._

O, but she had not known her power. Even in death – or was it death? Oblivion? Wherever she was that he could not be – to send forth from dry cold seeds a flowering, fruiting tree.

The sound of bubbling water sent him scrambling backwards, recalling festering wounds and voices that called inexorably from the deep. But the clear water only laughed with the sound of her laughter, wholly unaware of his alarm, and poured forth from the dry lands with the touch of her footsteps in that flowering valley. And the water, such cold, crystal, clear water, flowed singing like the path of a blazing star weaved from dawn and shadow, to quench the thirst of dry spirits.

Listening to the spring, Hades heard all around him the echoes of her voice, saw all around him the lingering shadow as she turned the corner, too far ahead to see – but for a strand of hair blown back, the sweet residue of a smile. He stood, and found himself in a field of whitest asphodel. Mortals would call it the Elysian Fields.

Hades had never wept. But then he had never felt such overwhelming anguish, such unending grief that threatened to cleave him in two and climb from his skin and break all the world in twain. But he could not; for all the world was she – all that was beautiful was she, the wind was her breath and the earth was her sigh, the water her tears and the fire her light. So the anguish turned only sharper, plunged only deeper, a blade of dazzling light slicing the dark cool corners of his soul to spill outward in a sound of rendered pain. The deadliest dart was not some contrivance of Eros, it was this; it was she.

His body wracked with sobs, Hades fell upon his knees in exquisite pain and excruciating release.


	16. Reunited

A/N: AH! My goodness but the typos were atrocious the last time. A big thanks to V for pointing those out...and I always thought I didn't need a beta. Thanks for all the reviews.

* * *

**Chapter 16: Reunited**

Night drew smoothly over the land, trickling through the dense foliage of the pomegranate tree, darkness dripping like silent rain, until all was enfolded by shadow. The evening was still, without the faint stirrings of the breeze that whistled through the crags from across the Styx. The leaves of the pomegranate tree were still, and only thing that moved was Hades, his slow breaths marked by the rising and falling of his chest.

He half-sat, half-lay in the rigid embrace of the tree, three days old now and the size of a small hill. Pale broad-fingered hands traced the whorls upon the bark, its passing course marked of life, and wind, and blood.

He had watched the rain like he would watch a lover's hand shading his eyes from the sun, and listened to the endless whispers of the spring. And between the shifting shadows of sun and clouds, rain and light, sometimes he wondered if this conclusion had not been so sweet after all; that she had only left him to his own devices – for what love could she bear for him? – and only by coincidence was he swept up in the wake of her awesome power. Then he remembered that she had returned him his name, and the maelstrom of thoughts all fall silent but for a single note of grief.

The scars on his chest were healing; they scabbed in thick, raised welts over his heart, and where the wound had left him vulnerable, his convalescent self seemed only to have gained yet another shield against the world.

Down, many many feet below he heard the soft nonsense of the spring. Hades closed his eyes.

He had listened hard to the babbling water, but to no avail. Joyful one moment it was haunting the next, but no words, no whispered memories flowed from the rich, cool, insensible waters of the earth. She might have been able to decipher its song; she knew of such things – but he, he knew only one tune.

And so Hades took refuge up in the eaves of the silent tree, his ear against the rough cool bark, his body protesting every extra minute spent uncomfortably in its pitiless embrace.

This windless night the pomegranate tree was imminently, immediately alive. In stillness, in silence, every leaf and branch and fruit cried out and pulsed; spidery tension stretched itself like a web across the darkened inner space, branch to branch, leaf to leaf, held so taut that Hades dared not breathe too loudly lest he shatter the strings and break the air into a thousand pieces. If he could see the connections, the pattern of that fisherman's web, he would swear that coursing through even the finest strings was something red and hot as the core of the day-star, molten, living, raging heat that pulsed and stretched and rushed with every breathless moment.

Hades knew it was fate that bound him here tonight – bound him with seething, invisible chains stronger than any that bound the Titans. He knew nothing of this heady magic, magic of a land that with each passing day seemed to slide out from under his dominion; a living land that now went its merry way and only tolerated his commands in honor of the bond he had with that which gave it spirit. But Hades was not afraid; expectation sang in his veins of some beauty yet revealed, and he would only take care, and then he would fly.

The tree shifted around him, swaying though there had been no breeze, like a stallion stirring before the race. He sat up, anchored himself with long legs around the swaying branch, and held tight to the immovable trunk. The bark etched its mysterious designs into his cheek, pressed tightly against its side, telling of a future indecipherable. The present was only the wild buckling and the leaves scattering applause and exclamations, and the sound of round heavy fruits falling to the ground.

Then hard, cruel arms closed around him, tracing sharp nails across the plane of his cheek to cover his eyes, wrapping about him in dark, impossible coils.

_Spiked points pierced his flesh; a talon struck a blow across his cheek, tearing it. Hades suppressed his fear of the suffocating, encroaching vines, and used the sharpest edges of his fear and anger, to tear and shred and burn. _

_How dare she!_

_He had bent to the pulse fluttering furiously beneath her marble skin, intent only on that all-enveloping warmth – such a delicate creature, he had thought._

As his powers wrapped burning around the monster that gripped him, a wail.

It wailed with her voice.

And Hades faltered, the swell of his heart rocking so violently against his chest that he could not catch his breath for an instant. The vise-like branches, taking advantage of this pause in his attack, tightened, suffocating around him.

But he held still, not daring to hurt the thing that came of her spirit, spoke of her voice; for though it killed him, it would do so with her grip.

_Only one more word,_ he thought to the sickening sound of cracking ribs, the blood red tide dancing before his eyes blinded him. He remembered her dancing in the valley, laughing, carrying him with her into the air. Her eyes were filled with bliss.

_Only one more word,_ as he felt his arm and legs torn and bent as easily as a child would break a twig, the pain flooding every part of his mind. He remembered her turning colder in his arms, wide unseeing eyes searching his face. Only the same open innocence; no more hiding, and all made clear.

_One more word, my love. _Before the darkness.

* * *

"Awake."

Hades stirred, and wished he had not. The memory of pain came to him, setting every nerve on fire, and a shout tore itself free of his throat, only to emerge as a strangled groan.

"I can't be dead," he said without opening his eyes, "I hurt too much."

Something fluttered above him, clear as a brook. A laugh.

"That is because you cannot die, Hades. Awake."

And it seemed like the most natural thing to open his eyes and to look upon her face – open and clear, unclouded by pain, untainted by madness. The sun shone through the gaps in the thick foliage to light up her hair, curling in tendrils of flame around her little face. Beautiful.

And he remembered, and the memory of it all crashed through him.

Too much bewilderment. Too much to say. Too numbed to say anything. Too much fear that by blinking she will fade. It was too much. Hades closed his eyes.

"Hades," a touch of impatience now – and concern. He had never heard that in her voice before, not for him – "Hades, what is wrong?"

With a great effort, he steeled himself to look. She was there, perched above him, one hand bracing herself against a branch and the other gently smoothing over his brow. He almost closed his eyes again with the feel of it, but for the other thing he saw.

She was naked. So naturally, gloriously naked as he could not have imagined even in his dreams.

She must be real.

* * *

"You're shivering," she murmured, as he held her to him.

He felt her hand passing like a cool stream down his back.

"I was cold," he replied, amazed he could still find his voice.

Her hair covered him like woven light.


	17. Contentment

A/N: yes, this is unforgivably late - I apologize for the spastic updating, college is a silly place.

* * *

**Chapter 17: Contentment**

He was content.

Once, Hades would have found it strange, and a little ominous, that his heart should rest so comfortably and sit with such impunity in his chest – as if it had always known its place there. As if there were not times, repeated instances, long hours spent during gray dawns of the last millennium when he had wondered – dispassionately, detachedly – but wondered nonetheless, if he ever had a heart to begin with. But in those moments, even if the answer were in the negative, he would only have felt a nebulous cloud of unease – the sort that comes of shifting shadows on the mind, the sort never to yield its true shape, thus demand no reckoning in return. All those musings were dispelled now.

A thousand thousand years, and finally a man, Hades thought wryly, as he watched the white flash of his Persephone as she parted the long grass sea before her, floating like a pale vision, surveying this realm – _their_ realm. A thousand thousand years, and he finally found something worth holding on to. He finally had something to lose.

For he would lose her, and soon – this much was sure. So it was all the more curious that he should feel the unfamiliar vastness of contentment flooding his world, that he should move through its present eternity – slowly, as a man would wade through a sunlit pool.

"Hades," she was waving to him. He obeyed, walking closer, struggling through the clinging inertia of his joy, and felt it bead upon his skin, drip out sparking from the ends of his hair. The dew upon the grass, he thought as the green blades whispered against his ankles and his bare hands – the dew was there because he had scattered them there, in his fecund joy, gleaming in the sunlight.

She held out a hand to him, and then looked back to the brave world, this pale but lovely world of her making. And in the sweep of her long lashes he remembered a sight he had once seen on earth-above, the memory of a thousand birds – a sweeping cloud-line on the horizon – fluttering, descending at once into the sea. In the dazzling light those thousand, thousand birds seemed to burn on the surface of still waters, turning the west into flame.

And he thought - despite himself - that those birds had no place here, in the dark corners of the earth, where light was but a lovely stranger and not a memory in the marrow. Yet the contentment sat there unmoving, unshakable even, in its place in his breast. And he realized that he must believe in her now - no, he did believe in her; and this must sustain him, in the coming hours of silence.

Back then, to the sight of Persephone – fearsome, powerful as she was beautiful, pure as the beech tree in the dawn of time, a gazelle upon the sunlit fields of her home world; her purity honed to a blade's edge.

And then she looked back at him, with a faint expression inquiry, for he had not yet taken her hand.

He could deny her nothing.

The touch of her fingers was akin to the feel of a brand, red-hot, burning in his palm, scorching even into his bones. Hades suppressed a gasp of pain, and hoped she would take the small hiss passing through his lips as merely the wayward exhalation of a breath. Gods, but it burned; and she felt it not.

It was as if, divested of immortality, he walked too close to the flames of sacrifice.

It was not like this, a mere two days ago. Two days ago she glided through his hands smooth and cool and glimmering as the stream that ran under their pomegranate tree. Two days ago he did not wonder, with her hand in his, whether his flesh might even then be charred black and red, and then, to crumble into dust. Two days since, he knew that the pain left no mark.

Either the communion with another of his kind must necessarily come through pain and immolation, or this change, said some strange, voiceless but inexorable algebra within him, this was because she must go home. This was because he could no more stand up to the burning fierceness of her sun than she could languish here, forever in a twilight.

Hades had known pain. And he thought that he could stand this, for a little longer, ifa little was all he was to have.

To stand a little longer, in his ocean of contentment, before the burning possibility of separation baked it all to clay.


	18. Remember Me By

A/N: I actually do have the next chapter written, this time (though I think you could guess as to how it goes), but I'll post that as soon as it's revised. A million thanks to everyone who's reviewed, **Para Dise, Rakkia, Jenn, Alyssa Rose, Charlie Chaplin2, Catherine Chen, V., TheZorpistuttle, Viva Andromeda, Wise Owl Athena. **A bit more (please sir, may I?) on these two chapters would be amazing - Concrit especially!!

grins

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**Chapter 18: Remember Me By**

"I must leave you with something," she said, and the words sounded to him like the click of something falling sharply into place – whether a bone reset into its rightful joint, or one suddenly cracked beyond repair, he did not know. But there was some relief in his heart, hearing this from her at last, so Hades thought it might be the former.

"Something for you to remember me by," she continued, thoughtfully, pomegranate-stained lips pursed in concentration, as if all this were a vexing dilemma she had not yet considered, until now. Hades hoped it was because she had never yet realized the imminent reality of leaving him, and not because she had not thought, until now, that he might miss her.

His right hand lay curled in his lap, numb still from when she had taken it two days ago (was it two days? Time passed strangely for him now, when he lived not to pass the time but to dive so deeply into each second that an eternity fills the time before the fall of that next second, dived so deeply that he might make a second Time of her, entirely of the impressions of his mind. He was a bird woken too late to his last spring, building frantic nests for all the springs hereafter, in a mere two days. Had it really only – already – been two days?).

He did not know what to say to this, her inquiry, her little comment. All the construction, rapid turning of his mind was pointed toward remembering her – to remember so much as he could. To fabricate, even, memories in the mind – for in the end, wouldn't he have dreamed up of those nonexistent moments while she had been with him? He had already been busy, making lies for when the truth was gone.And the blessed little light, at the thought of her, lit everything with a glow – even falsehood.

He worshipped her, Hades thought, the word a surprise and a truth. And he did, desperately, want some _thing_, some relic of the only being he loved, but he could not ask. For materials wasted, vanished, crumbled away; images faded, distorted, yellowed to dust. But nonetheless he must speak.

Waving a hand at the dimming fields of white-waving asphodel before them – Night began to pass, overhead – he said, "I have all this, to remind me."

She looked at him looking beyond those hills, and frowned.

"But that is incidental, Hades, all of it."

"Blood flowers," he muttered under his breath, "incidental indeed."

"The fortunate side effect of unfortunate things," she said, testing to see if he would smile. She had retained the memory of all that which came before, Hades knew. But she could – as he once had the ability to do, but now has lost the gift – look upon the memory coolly, critically, observe the event and ignore the horror.

And seeing his face persist in its quiet melancholy, she reached over and took his hand. The left one this time, thankfully – but she had his attention now.

"I must do this," she said.

He nodded, "anything, then."

"But Hades – "

She leapt up, suddenly, and with a huff at him tore down the hill, flew – it seemed – through the plains. A breeze, in the wake of the pale soles of her feet, and the stars wavered – his eyes blurred a little, and something was happening to the sprigs of asphodel. The leaves stretched long, and the petals flattened and grew broad before his eyes, and turned velvety dark.

She ran back to him, his Persephone, palms shadowed and fresh with the scent of new-broken blooms – and the smell of it shocked him suddenly as he reached for a petal, brought it to his face to recognize the poppy flower of deepest crimson and black. And remembering what she had done once, he held it before his mouth and blew on it, only to see it – singular still – fly off his fingers and catch on the cool silk of her skirt.

Persephone laughed, and plied her sweet breath to the little shadowy handful of that precious harvest. The air around them flew rife with the sight and scent of spring.

She brushed the petals off his dark head, laughing now, and her hand was not so white-hot, having exerted her powers. The valley below them glowed ruby at the last flashes of the sun.

"From these, mortals brew their elixirs of forgetfulness?" he asked her, chewing on the thin edge of a petal. It tasted faintly of green bitterness, and the tang held, as of a sweet ash.

She fell quiet from her laughter, and bending down looked into his face. This time he gave her look for look, and wondered if she would understand. He wondered what it was he wanted her to understand.

"Ah," and her eyes lit up again, "the poppies aren't it. They aren't it at all," she cried, and standing motioned for him to follow her rapid progress down the side of their grassy hill. Hades stood, and brushing himself off, thought that for everything to come, it was perhaps a good occasion to show off his wings.

They grew out of his shoulder blades – black and shining, bat-like – the roots ending low on his back, and he took the first hill at a sprint, the momentum of the glide carrying him level with her in the space of a drawn breath. He heard her gasp of delight, and then she was there, white-hot between his shoulder blades, her hands clasped in wonder about his neck. But even he had to smile, when after a few seconds she deemed that his back was not quite broad enough to accommodate herself and a pair of wings, she – keeping a constant strangle-hold on his neck – slipped the rest of her body down over the horizontal ledge of his shoulder. And he clasped her, the dazzling warmth, blinding pain of her, entirely in his arms and took to the upward air.

Everything lay below – the Blessed Isle stretched like an archipelago into the wide water, and where it metthe mainland after a narrow isthmus, just miles and miles – a horizon – of asphodel. The vague white swirl of spirits moved through the fields like sentient, low-lying fog. And far, far into the dark, the geometric outline of his mountains and his hills stood against the glimmer of the River, covered – he knew – in the same shade of pale blooms.

"Look," he said to her.

Look at all this, here only because of you. Look at all this that would only remind me, too clearly, of you. But she did not look, as he asked her. She clung to him with her arms, dug her sharp little chin into the crook of his neck, wound her legs tight about his waist, and murmured nonsense into his cool skin.


	19. Stay

_A/N:Last chapter, and the end! My deepest appreciation to everyone who's reviewed: **Black Rose Writting, LonesomeGurlAngelofDeath, TheZorpistuttle, DLazyBat, Charlie Chaplin 2, **and all before (and hopefully after). It's been a pleasure, and a good deal of fun._  


* * *

**Chapter 19: Stay**

Hades took one swoop around the tall spire of his black castle, and assessing his powers thought the pain might prove to be a problem, soon.

She looked up, as if reading his thoughts, and pressing her mouth to his ear – it was almost a kiss – said, "take me to our spring, under the pomegranate tree."

He was feeling faint by the time they landed, and they stumbled a few steps in the gathering dark before she found her footing, and caught his hand in hers as he sat down, heavily in the grass. The leathery wings crackled and folded jerkily around him, and if he could only focus – he let go of her bright, sharp hand – ah – he could retract them into himself, like so. And he was sitting, gasping man-like, every nerve afire. Hades brushed off her silent, questioning hand and motioned before them – even his damned hand trembled – to the bubbling water. The earth around them was damp, dewy with water. He noticed as he sat back, trying to unclench his jaw, that the dark soil clung to him, exposed between thick tufts of green and clusters of streaked crocuses. The leaves of the towering pomegranate clicked softly, glossy foliage scattering points of light in the dense and gathering dark.

Before him, the faint outline of pale limbs and the white glint of her eyes as she looked away, to sing to the rising breaths of spring.

He had known, long ago, that they were kindred, Hades thought as his eyes began to flutter closed. He heard the soft impact of a body on the ground and realized he was lying down. His body resisted, successfully, his efforts to sit, and so he breathed in the scent of the drifting night, the sweet smell of soil, and let the dark work again on his senses. But on his tongue he still tasted the ashen flower, and looking up to the starless ceiling of stone, he thought, as he fell asleep to the sound of Persephone's whispered melodies, that he had known in his heart that she could not live here where the flowers were not sweet, where there were no stars, and it would be tomorrow when he must see her go.

But he slept smiling.

Hades dreamed.

He stood upon the blinding steps of the Unreal City, the scent of burning golden air waving about him, and opened wide his eyes. The sun pained him still, but before him stood a vision – a slender reed of a girl crowned with garlands, her hair was deepest black, the starless black of the nights under the earth, but on the side where it caught the sun it shone out, dazzling as burnished gold. And her mother – her poor mother, must in vain attempt to shield this innocence from the world.

But no, he thought, with whatever figment left of his consciousness, no – innocence cannot be regained. And he can no more undo the time since their first meeting than he could undo his love. And the image of that city faded around them, dimming, flickering, winking out, and with it the marbled steps, the blinding sun, the worried face of Demeter, until it was only the two of them, held in a bubble of darkness. They dwelled in the passage of stone before the emergence, before the sun.

Because perhaps, he thought, even when the innocence had gone, even when that bright, clear soul has seen the shadow cast by its own light in the darkest tunnels of the earth – perhaps even then there will be some happiness left, some harmony gained from the play of light against shadow, and it would be enough, in the end. In this world, one cannot hope to live, and be untainted.

And he walked forward, caught hold of that slim hand. And if she were to look up at him with the smile he had sometimes seen, he would then dip his head down – for she was much smaller than he – and kiss her. Not in order that she might know his darkness, but only that maybe, maybe after she kissed him back, it would no longer be so painful to look upon her in under this sun, maybe it would no longer burn his arms to hold her close to him – and perhaps it would no longer mean his death, to make love to her.

* * *

The spring sang, a little distance away, nonsense and babbling, like the rhymes of childhood repeated until the words themselves lost all meaning, and the memories they carried lost all pain, but flowed on in the rhythm and the ceaseless beat of those sounds. That she did not scald him, lying there next to him, spoke of the depth of magic she had transferred to the innocent, clear waters. And Hades wondered what it was, exactly, that she had done, when she stirred again beside him, and mumbled –

"To help you forget me, if you wish."

For a moment he could not draw breath, for another kind of pain altogether.

As if sensing his mood she peeked up at him, the rising sun catching the tips of her lashes with gold, and the tawny, flecked depths of her eyes.

"Hades?"

"And perhaps, you too should take a draught of its water before you go," he said, unable to avert his face from her, and equally incapable of hiding his pain.

"Oh," she said, eyes wide.

"Oh," and then she smiled in the dawn, "but that is impossible."

She drew nearer, her breaths warm upon his face, "I'd sooner forget you as forget myself."

And he was too weary, too content with her warm in his arms, that all the shells and ice and silences melted between them for a moment, and he found himself smiling at the thought of her poppy fields, and her forgetful spring, and said, in all truth, "I'd much rather have you, pain and all, than the memory of you, ever golden as that would be. And I would be content if you would be here, even if it is once every thousand years, that I can see you, and speak to you, and touch you."

And the upwelling of his remembered bitterness seemed then but the remnant, retreating shadow against the bright noon of his love.

"But I have no claim on you, love. You hold my life and my kingdom in your hands – but as I have been a monster too long, I must be selfish. I cannot live happily only hoping that you might be well in the bright places of the world. I must see it glow in you, to hear it spoken of, by you, to feel you burn bright with it, even if it is an hour in a millennia–"

She stopped him with a kiss.

And a long time later, she asked– "If I were to stay – Hades – if I am to stay – show me how."

And he took her hand, and led her to the pomegranate tree.


	20. Voice 1: Demeter

A/N: Hey guys. The story is officially over; the obsession is not. Consider Demeter -

* * *

1. DEMETER

Strange.

That the visionary youth

should always have a vision of

completion. Stasis

of noontime, glorifying one thing:

Love, which – I will tell you

does not conquer or unify

but jumbles the parameters of War

until you forget what you were fighting,

and whom. In a hurricane

Who fights among themselves?

Have a little sense, and hide.

:

This completion of Love,

which looks so like Chaos,

which ends in devastation

is your god now.

:

My daughter - Kore –

When I named you I knew this -

Children want always to switch alliances

They know their power

In whose hand they cling to,

Whose name they take.

They have seen it in our faces.

:

Go then, Persephone, into the dark. But at least

I have lived enough, and know enough

to make you listen, to make you

Fear it as you once did –

As you should.


	21. Voice 2: Persephone

**2. PERSEPHONE**

And after all this to live with Mother again

wake for the reaping and

Lie docile for the ink-stroke of night

To run its hand over my sleep

I never thought it would be so easy –

:

The return, I thought:

The re-deployment, battle lines redrawn.

As children skipping home

By the growing blue shadows

Pick at the invisible seams of their clothes

Wondering if they had grown too big for them.

:

To return: to correct misinformation,

Deal medallion-bright justice –

The un-righted wrongs of yesteryear

Fixed now, here in the past, fixed

By woman-future-extraordinaire.

:

I thought to fight –

I thought, the lingering votary of magic,

The bombastic red poppy stays

For no distant, father, husband, sun.

It calls to fire;

burns only in shadow.

:

But maybe this:

:

Magic needs not announce itself

When it had and has been

The Nothing

Burning everything.


End file.
